Dallas attorney Jamey Newberg has been covering the Texas Rangers, from the big club down through the entire farm system, since 1998. His website can be found at www.newbergreport.com.

Crystal ballin'.

As I get ready to
take Max to school, having rifled last night through more than 100 of the
excellent questions you all submitted for volume two of “Asked & Answered”
(only about 40 of which I’ll be able to include), a thought occurred to me.

Baseball America‘s Top 100 Prospects list should be revealed
later this week, and if there’s commentary attached to it, it will probably include
a remark that we’re starting to see with some regularity, that the Rangers
system is the best in the game not just because of its high-end prospects but also
because of its vertical waves of talent, its horizontal balance, and its diversity
(draft, international, trades).

And as I turned that
thought over in my mind, I realized this: By the end of 2011, as Max is
entering second grade, my dream Rangers rotation will contain a big league free
agent, a draft-and-follow, a conventional draft pick, a trade acquisition, and
an international free agent.

There are a number of
reasons that the Texas
starting five won’t turn out to be Ben Sheets, Derek Holland, Michael Main, Neftali
Feliz, and Martin Perez.Injuries
happen.So do trades.So do Joe Wieland’s.

But as long as Baseball America finds it reasonable to
project rosters years into the future, ignoring the reality of player movement,
it’s an exercise I don’t mind engaging in myself, and if that conceivable starting
five, guardrailed by Mike Maddux, doesn’t get you fired up, then the recognition
that this front office is attacking the job of player acquisition from every possible
angle as well as it is ought to.

When
my baseball brain is assaulted later today with images and sound of Alex and 24
Id’s, I’m going to turn my attention back to the idea of Sheets, Holland, Main,
Feliz, and Perez, and all that that implies.

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